


How to Dad

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Kid Fic, single dad!Bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 17:11:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14958683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: Bellamy knows how nervous Clarke is to watch his daughter for a weekend while he's away at a conference, so he makes a couple of instructional parenting videos, more to get her to laugh and relax than anything else.It's kind of a shock when they go viral.





	How to Dad

**Author's Note:**

> I got a couple of different anonymous requests for an AU based on the How to Dad videos and it seemed appropriate for Father's Day. Even if one of the prompts came in December (oops) (never say never I guess)

"Are you sure you trust me with this?" Clarke asks, staring dubiously down at his daughter in her arms.

Lena coos, stirring from her sleep just a little, and Clarke's eyes widen. She shifts the four-month-old in her arms carefully, like she's a bomb that is about to blow any second. Bellamy can't help but smile, fond, as he watches them.

"You're going to be fine. This conference only lasts for a few days, and I'll have my phone on me the whole time. Not that you'll need it. Because you're going to be _fine_."

Clarke reaches out to stroke a tentative finger across Lena's baby-soft cheek.

"What if I screw it up and scar her for life?"

"Then I'll have years of paying for therapy to look forward to," he shrugs. Clarke scowls at him, nervousness forgotten. Which was maybe what he was after. He smirks. "I'm telling you, Princess. Babies are easy. Plus, I emailed you _detailed_ instructions, just like you asked. You guys are going to be fine."

"I'd keep arguing the point with you, but if I do you're going to miss your bus."

His smirk melts into a grin.

"That's one way to say you don't have a good comeback." And then, before she can protest further, he leans in to drop a kiss on the crown of his daughter's head, then on Clarke's cheek before pulling away and slinging his duffel over his shoulder. "See you guys in a few days."

His cheeks are red-hot as he heads for the Uber but he doesn't look back. So he doesn't see Clarke lift her fingers to the spot where his lips brushed her face, gaping for a good minute or two even after the car has disappeared.

"Okay," she says, looking down at the sleeping bundle in her arms. "It's just you and me now. Let's agree to help each other out, okay?"

She keeps a careful hold on Lena's neck and head as she makes her way to the couch, sinking down slowly. She hasn't spent extended alone time with a baby since she was in high school and found that babysitting was not her ideal way to make a quick buck. And even then, she'd made Wells come be her backup in case anything happened that required skills beyond her beginner's level.

The thing is, she _wants_ to be good with Bellamy's kid. She's planning to be a part of their lives as long as they'll let her.

She'd been the one to help him figure his life out when Roma, a woman he'd dated casually a few times and slept with once, told him that she was pregnant. Clarke had been relieved that Roma and Bellamy didn't want to give anything more serious a try between them, and doubly so when Roma gave Bellamy custody of their daughter without a fight.

She left for her position with the Peace Corps not long after Lena was born, or else Clarke might not be in the tricky position she was in now of agreeing to babysit her best friend's baby for the weekend and having no idea how to do it.

 _At least while Lena's asleep it's easy_ , she thinks, pulling up the email on her phone that Bellamy had sent her.

Reading over it, she starts to smile. He'd given her a detailed rundown of Lena's usual schedule, meticulous instructions for all the questions Clarke might have, even drawn diagrams of where in the house certain items could be located.

He'd even, she sees at the bottom, left her some helpful links.

_I tried to send these in the email itself but it told me they exceeded the maximum capacity for an attachment, so I got Monty to help me put them somewhere you could find them. Links below._

_Hope this is all helpful. Can't wait to see my girls in a few days :)_

_-Bellamy_

Curious, she clicks on the first link. Up pops a YouTube channel that Monty has apparently dubbed 'How to Dad', with a handful of videos under two minutes apiece, Bellamy's handsome, slightly haphazard self smiling out at her from each frame.

They range from 'how to hold a baby' and 'how to feed a baby', to 'how to change a diaper' and 'how to get the baby to go to sleep'. Lena co-stars, of course, and despite the low volume of Clarke's phone she wakes after the first couple of videos, entranced by the sound of her dad's voice.

She babbles incoherently and flails her chubby arms, and even though Clarke is still petrified of screwing something up, she has to smile.

"Yeah, he's something, isn't he?" She asks the baby, turning the volume up and clicking on the next one, and feeling, for the first time, like she can maybe actually do this.

* * *

The weekend goes fine, of course, as Bellamy knew it would. No matter how reluctant Clarke was to be the one to accept responsibility for Lena for the weekend, he knew that she was more than capable. And that her mother and Marcus lived only fifteen minutes away, if Clarke needed any assistance.

He even knew that seeing Clarke more at ease around his daughter, and Lena start to recognize Clarke, would make him melt in all the most embarrassing ways. He'd prepared himself for it as best he could.

What he hadn't seen coming was anyone else finding his humble collection of How to Dad videos, much less amassing a moderate international following over the next few months.

"It's 'cause you're hot," Miller tells him, bouncing Lena on his knee. Her giggles are the best sound in the world. Bellamy leans into his friend's side to make a face at his daughter, who shrieks with laughter.

"You think?"

"I think Lena gets at least half the credit," says Monty, who has designated himself as Bellamy's brand manager, whatever the hell that means. "There are a lot of babies who are just not as cute as she is."

"And a lot of women love to watch dudes with kids," Raven puts in. "I don't, personally, but I've been on the internet enough to know that's a thing."

She pretends she's so above reacting to the whole adorable scene, but Bellamy can see the smile lurking in the corners of her mouth. She's not immune.

"I think there can be multiple factors," Clarke says, holding her hands out for the baby. Miller passes her over and Lena promptly puts Clarke's blonde braid directly into her mouth.

"Yeah, like my amazing advice and incredible wit," he deadpans.

"Nah," says Raven. "You're not that funny."

"Or wise," Monty adds.

Raven smirks. "Mostly just hot."

"Yeah, I just watch your videos on mute," Miller says, then ducks when Bellamy throws a pillow his way.

"Your support means the world to me."

The weirdest thing is that he keeps making the videos.

In part, it's cool to watch Lena grow up on film right before his eyes. In part, he knows that fulfilling the requests he gets, and making parenting look simpler than it is, actually does help some people with their own experiences.

But mostly it's just an excuse to hang out with Clarke.

His first videos, the ones he'd made for her, he'd done in front of a tripod. It had been awkward to talk to a blinking red light, and the production quality had been... obviously homemade, to put it nicely.

Clarke has an artist's eye. She knows about lighting and angles and editing clips, not to mention how much more natural it feels to perform his bits for her, rather than for an audience he can't even see.

"You were born to do this," she tells him, smiling as she watches back a clip. "I can tell you love it."

His heart stops, then starts again. The videos are fun, but she's definitely misinterpreting which part of this he loves.

"The fame is a little weird," he admits. "But the theater kid I am at heart has a lot of fun with it."

"You're a natural. It's no wonder you have a following."

Because he can't resist, he hikes Lena up higher on his shoulder-- she's doing the cuddly thing into his neck which means it's almost naptime-- and comes around to see what Clarke is looking at. The screen is frozen on him bathing Lena in the sink, but instead of watching his daughter, he's flashing a smile back toward the camera. Toward Clarke.

He doesn't recognize the moment. It's something he must do a lot, because it feels familiar even though he can't recall the particulars of it. And on his face, it's really, really obvious what he's feeling.

He clears his throat.

"I'm gonna go put her down. You feel like staying for dinner?"

"You cooking?"

"For you? Always."

Her breath catches and he clears his throat. That hadn't come out like he meant it to, an offer of payment for filming him. But it hadn't been a lie either.

"I'll see what you've got in the pantry," she whispers after a moment.

He nods.

"Be right back."

Lena goes down easy and he takes a minute to watch, entranced by the rise and fall of her chest before he turns and heads back downstairs. Every step feels like a storm gathering. Like something momentous is about to break on the horizon.

Clarke is rooting through his fridge when he returns to the kitchen, and his heart leaps in his chest. He can't explain why, but he suddenly knows: this is it.

"You have a lot of random stuff," she says in what almost passes for a normal voice, standing back and letting the door swing shut. "Nothing that obviously leaps out to me as a coherent meal, but you know that I usually just--"

Bellamy steps closer and she falls silent, backing against the cool solidity of the refrigerator. He takes another step, lifting a hand to her face carefully. She doesn't move away, doesn't break his gaze.

Slowly, like a question, he leans in, keeping eye contact until he's too close. When he brushes his lips against hers, her hands come to rest on his sides, pulling him closer, but the only thing that registers in his mind is that she _kisses him back_.

He means to pull away after that first one. To check in, make sure they're on the same page. But then Clarke is holding onto him like she'll never let go, kissing him deeper and slower and sure, and he finds that he doesn't need words right now. Not when he could keep kissing her instead.

Eventually she flips them around so she's pressing _him_ against the fridge, holding him in place as she kisses him thorough and firm. It's Clarke through and through, and he breaks the kiss to laugh.

"Care to let me in on the joke?"

"No joke," he says, tucking a blonde wave behind her ear, stroking her temple, her cheek, her jaw as he goes. "I just-- can't believe it."

Her face softens.

"Yeah," she says, leaning in for another kiss. "Maybe that can be your next video: How to Get the Girl."

He grins and rubs his hands along her spine.

"No way," he says. "I'm not sharing that secret with anyone. You're all mine."

As soon as the words leave his mouth he freezes, unsure if he's gone a step too far, but Clarke just beams, bright as the sun.

"All yours," she agrees. "That sounds about right."


End file.
